Week 34 (August 23 - August 29)

This morning my knee was feeling better so I had a fast run to the bridge and back, no pain even whilst sprinting up the driveway to the academy gate. Shortly after the run I was barely able to walk, my leg had frozen up and the knee was extremely painful, I had obviously pulled or mildy torn a tendon. We got a new student, John from England staying a month. At 8:00 my shifu told me to go to my room and rest, I guess he could see the pain on my facial expression. In the afternoon I just did some basic punches and weights, I'm so annoyed by the fact that I haven't been able to train with 100% intensity for about 2 weeks now.

Tuesday, the pain is still ever present even after applying pressure with knee supports etc, I wish I had some pain killers, I never take any but this really hurts. Just lying in bed all morning is really boring.

The only thing that made things better was a call from my parents telling me they would be coming to China to visit Dan and I. I didn't train on wednesday and thursday and after speaking to the parents it was decided that Dan and I should fly down to Shanghai and travel with them to Beijing and then the academy, that way we could spend some more time together.

 

 Both San Da shifus and us

On friday we booked our flight to Shanghai, the choices were either to fly from Changchun or try something new and fly from Shenyang. We opted for the Shenyang choice because the distance by train was almost the same as going to Changchun also the flights from Shenyang were cheaper and shorter. The flight booking wasn't as easy as expected, it was the first time I had used ctrip and they wanted a copy of the credit card and a copy of their faxback credit card form sent to them to confirm the booking. Only problem is that the academy has no printer I could use and no fax service. In the end i wrote out the form by hand took a photo of it and the credit card and emailed it which worked out fine. After I was done with that I headed off to Siping to get the train tickets to Shenyang for monday morning.

Week 33 (August 16 - August 22)

On Monday afternoon we returned to the academy but didn't end up doing much.

The remainder of the week was also a waste because I spent 3 days not training because of my knee and for the rest of the time I just did some basic punching exercises.

Week 32 (August 9 - August 15)

Monday morning I got up with knee pain and tried to run to the bridge but ended up walking back. Morning training I only did punching, Dan fell while running and bruised his leg pretty badly. For the rest of the day I just did lots of punching and in the process I managed to mess up my knuckles by punching with only wraps and no gloves.

On Tuesday the 10th the headmaster interrupted the morning training and told everyone that there will be test day instead of on the 11th. Everybody was angry and the headmaster got into an argument with our shifu and chris. Also I was told that if I don't perform I won't get a certificate, I told him that I am here for quite a while still and I'm not sparring with a messed up hand and injured knee. Later that day we just practised some sparring. We also got a new male translator from Guangzhou that speaks English pretty well.

Wednesday we trained really hard and I did a lot of weight training with the shifu. My favorite translator Linna who also happens to be a good friend of mine left the academy. After dinner at the academy Chris (Linnas boyfriend) called and asked if some of us would come to Siping to have dinner with her and say goodbye, I really didn't feel like it because I was so tired but I was happy because she was extremely happy to see us.

Thursday we just relaxed all day and returned to the academy in the evening.

Friday the 13th yes the 13th I trained a bit in the morning.

Later that after I went to Changchun with the new students, Tristan, Leila and David. The main reason for me was to help Tristan buy a macbook. After arriving in Siping we bought tickets for 19RMB, we then bought some snacks for the journey. After waiting almost 2 hours in the humid and unpleasant waiting room we boarded the train which was on time for a change. The train was fairly empty and luckily we found seats in the comfortable and air conditioned cabin.

Upon our arrival in Changchun we looked for a taxi to take us to the hotel I had found in the lonely planet. A kind Chinese man told me not to look for cabs at the station as they would be expensive, he said it should be around 10RMB. After walking a short distance from the station all taxi drivers wanted at least 30RMB, after a lot of arguing they settled for 20RMB which was still way too much. We got to the hotel (Elan fashion Inn) which was fairly nice, the rooms were well equipped but they only had single beds so we ended up going to the hotel I had stayed last time, some small fairly decent joint which was pretty central.

After settling in, it was already 23:00 so we decided to go out and ended up going to the Classic music bar which was already pretty empty as most Chinese go out at around 20:30 and go home at around 23:00.

At about 1:00 am we ended up going to the Mayflower which was pretty busy because all the foreigners in Changchun go there. We ended up back at the hotel at around 2:00 am.

Saturday morning we checked out at around 11:00, both rooms only cost 188RMB for the night which was good. We then walked down the main road to find the restaurant called curry now which serves many western dishes the right way. For example the garlic bread is made with a real french loaf, bread that doesn't taste like cake and isn't sprinkled with sugar. We had many great dishes and everybody was happy to have some "real" food again.

Afterwards we went to the large computer mall, after much looking we found some apple retailers willing to go below the apple recommended retail pricing. The best deal we got was 10% off which is 7200RMB for the latest Macbook however we couldn't use any credit cards.

We had some good food at a nearby restaurant and decided to spend the night at a Chinese bathhouse. After asking the cab driver to take us to one we ended up at a place called the Sheraton Entertainment Club, obviously not related to the Sheraton hotel group.

We got a four person room which was massive considering the price of 280 RMB for the night. The bath house was also overboard, everything was lined with gold (obviously fake) but it looked really good. There was also a fish tank behind the main pool which was filled with sharks. After a comfortable nights sleep we went to the bank in the morning to try and get the money for the laptop Tristan wanted. We were told we would need to get it from the ATM, but with ATM displaying messages like "the page cannot be displayed" and "disk boot failure please press ctrl + alt + delete" it took forever.

Luckily Chinese ATM's allowed daily withdrawals of 20000RMB and 2000 - 2500RMB per transaction, after 4 different ATM's we went and got the laptop. The Apple approved reseller then also kindly gave Tristan some pirated software like Office 2008, Adobe CS5 etc. very kind indeed.

On our search for food we passed a large hospital and David had mentioned that he needed some Valium for his flight home. So I suggested we should try out the hospital, after registering at the hospital for 1RMB we then had to go see a doctor. Because Valium is a prescription medication David had his doubts but I didn't this is China after all (TIC). After telling the doctor that it was a urgent matter she prescribed 10 2.5mg tablets of Valium, the price? 0,8 RMB.

At about 5pm we got to the train station and there were no tickets available only a train at 9pm with no seats. We waited for what seemed like an eternity and eventually boarded the train on time. Our cabin was terrible, filled with redneck farmers and drunks all wanting to start a conversation. After about 15 minutes we moved in the dining cart and sat there for about 5 minutes after which we were told to pay 40RMB or leave, I just kept uttering the phrase "bu mingbai"/I don't understand. Eventually we had to move and we just waited in the hallway of the soft sleeper carriage.

There was even an English speaking conductor that told us that we couldn't stand there. We stayed and the time passed by pretty quickly, we arrived in Siping at 23:00 and decided to stay there for the night, instead of getting back to the academy exhausted and with no electricity.

Week 31 (2 August - 8 August)

This morning Chris joined Sanda, like Umit he will only take part in the morning session and train shaolin the rest of the day. After warming up and stretching we set up the matts and the carpet. We did some intensive sparring with kicking and punching without pads. No head punches or knees were allowed. After about 40 minutes all four of us had some kind of serious bruise or injury. Umit had a huge lump on his leg, Dan's toe nail had cracked, Chris had bruised shins, the shifu had some skin missing from the top part of his nose and my shin was bleeding again.

The rest of the day I practiced kicks and take downs with Dan. In the evening we watched Top Gear.

Tuesday morning we had to run to the bridge and back, the pain from my knee was terrible but I just kept pushing. For warm up we had to do the usual kicks and stretches. Afterwards Dan and I had to do 1000 different punches and the sweat was just pouring down. Afterwards we had to do the thing I hate most, the holding knee up exercises with a brick resting on my thigh for 3 minutes. Then we had to do the holding leg up exercise for 2 minutes each leg. Afterwards resting on our forearms in the push up position for 5 minutes (I could only do 2 minutes), then holding a handstand for as long as possible while resting against a wall.



In the afternoon I had to do some intensive stamina exercises like 100 squats, 100 push ups then do 10 push ups and sprint 50 meters, 10 squats then sprint, knees up for 10 seconds then sprint about 10 different combinations. After that we had to practice some sparring, accepting kicks and using them to take down the opponent. Sanda pads are like bullet proof vests, they stop the major damage but the blows still hurt every time. After training my knee was really painful and I had to change clothes again because everything was drenched in sweat yet again.

On Wednesday the weather was still bad, overcast and rain, no sun light or clear to be seen. My knee was hurting really bad so I didn't do any running or sprinting. Instead I did back, stomach, chest and arm exercises. After that I also had to do some punches and my arms were trembling until afternoon training. In the afternoon we did a number of different arm stretches, this was followed by one of the most intensive torture sessions I've ever experiences. First we had to 50 push ups with our arms close to our chest then 50 with our arms spread out. Next we had to hold up hour body weight with one arm whilst holding the other arm straight up in the air, easy for about a minute but we had to do it for 5 minutes on each side. Then we had to hold the push up position for 5 minutes followed by 10 minutes holding our bodies up with our forearms. The floor was drenched in sweat and we both experienced extreme muscular discomfort. We had to spend the rest of the training hitting the punching bag in a number of different ways.

In the afternoon the rain had stopped and we just went for a walk which was a nice way to relax a bit.

I woke up extremely tired on Thursday because I struggled to sleep, it is strange that even though I was so extremely exhausted and tired I just couldn't fall asleep. It had rained overnight and everything was wet, my entire upper body was extremely fragile and painful I just went for a walk because my knee was still aching. At 8:00 training was intensive like usual, after the standard warm up we had to do 200 normal punches, 200 hook punches and 200 upper cut punches. All punches had to be fast and we had to ensure that we were blocking with the hand we weren't punching with. After the 600 punches the floor was drenched in sweat and we had to spend the rest of the time sparring and practicing what we learnt. I must say I found it difficult to apply especially when hitting a person that I don't really want to hit.

In the afternoon we had to do 100 normal push ups after that we were told to do 100 pull ups, something I know I can't do. After 10 slow and painful pull ups I had to stop, after that I had to stop after every 5. I did 55 in total but Dan helped lift my body weight for the last 15.

 

On Friday Dan and I went to Siping to buy some supplies (mainly nuts and dried fruit) and relax a bit, Siping was also under construction and will remain like that until the end of November. When we got back to the academy we also received a nice package that our dad had sent us, it had all kinds of supplements and Biltong.